David Flynn was born in the textile mill company town of Bemis, TN. His jobs have included newspaper reporter, magazine editor and university teacher. He has five degrees and is both a Fulbright Senior Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Specialist with a recent grant in Indonesia. His literary publications total more than one hundred and ninety. David Flynn’s writing blog, where he posts a new story and poem every month, is at http://writing-flynn.blogspot.com/ . His web site is at http://www.davidflynnbooks.com .

An Inherited Photograph

​Cattle mar the field with their hooves.The sun.The snowcarpets all the earth in geometrical.Each different. Likethe death of ants.And that snow chills the ground but keeps it from greater cold.A tree never speaks of the wind that irritates it so.It is all great.Great great great great great.Fear the white snow of peace.Fear the brown bushes that spot the hillsidewhere the brown bear hides.Fear cattle. Fear water, muddy and crystal clear.Running and still.Be human in the ability to speak;but need only to think.Love, but love only ghosts.Fear sun fire;then at night, the moon.For only by fire do you see.Without heat the shapes of earth would freeze stillas in a picture inside a picture albuminside a cardboard box.If exposed to light,Aunt Bertha and Grandfather Roy.Dead.

White Noise

I run the fan in my apartmentfor the white noise.Today, however, a storm blew across the city,and the electricity is off.Without the fanI hear the world as it is.This means,the man upstairs is banging across the floor in mid-afternoon.Has he been laid off from his job?Sirens fill the streets.Some murder I don't know?Worst is thatsitting in the dark on the sofaI hear my own life:divorced;a job that is low-paying and temporary;teeth about to fall out.I need the fan and quick.

When the white noise returnsand the world becomes nothing but my wishes againI will continue trying to find love;continue paying my bills.A smile will return to my face.I will think in dreams.That is how I have lived before,and how I will live my remaining years:a fan and white noise.

Die

The trees are coated with ice.One lesson I learn from this isstay indoors.Another isuse the heater.For nature is limited as regardsto our safety.Bears eat us.Insects bite.Microbes infect.The death of a human is a water dropheavier and heavieruntil it plummets to the ground.So far seventy-five billion humans have died.Die.Die when the time comes.Kiss everyone you know good-by.Look around at your favorite view,mountain or downtown.Then die.

Birthday

Birthdays are bad days, steps to hell. I diebecause of birthdays. If I could stop still,like a bug in amber, I'd forget mybirthday. Life would be dreams of how I killmy loved ones. They curse outside my door.They ruin my dinner with their sarcasm.Unmoving, I would move in peace, no morethe burn of healing. I would replace them.

You forgot my birthday, all of you. Iwaited for your card, your call, your presentwrapped in red foil. None came. You accepted mypresents like ordinary lunches. What I resentmore than being alone, more than birthdaysas workdays, is my birthdays as bad days.

An Educated Man

The worry is that the bridge will not hold. Not a symbol, the bridge has to keep my car from falling into the river. Not a symbol, the river has many jobs to do: feed the fish, wash the land, fill the sea. Which is a large basin of salted water, and not an end to itself.

Those who do not read do not have these worries. Books are microscopes and this work of finding small grids is so human I could cry. Live and die: that is our job. How we spend the time is beside the point. 'There is one God' begins my religion, yet, thinking on an ancient text I find that I cannot eat pork, nor cut my hair.

This language is so human I could cry. I have faith in the bridge, for it will or will not hold me.

David, cross the damn bridge to the grocery store. You have nothing in the refrigerator.